


Why Not?

by lookingforthestars



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Help I can't stop writing Gertchase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforthestars/pseuds/lookingforthestars
Summary: “What if we got married?” He says it so casually, like he’s asking her to pass the chips, that she doesn’t register it right away. What if we…“Wait, what?”
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes
Comments: 12
Kudos: 178





	Why Not?

**Author's Note:**

> Why can’t I stop thinking about Gert and Chase? Like seriously, it’s been a week and I’m still having Major Feels about season 3. It’s ridiculous. Anyway, the other two stories I wrote were kinda heavy, so here’s a fun and fluffy one.

“What if we got married?”

He says it so casually, like he’s asking her to pass the chips, that she doesn’t register it right away. _What if we…_

“Wait, what?” Gert jumps up in her seat, turning toward him so quickly she twists something in her shoulder and gets a knot that she’s definitely going to have to work out. She’ll make him give her a massage. It’s his fault. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”

Chase studies her for a second, no doubt trying to assess if she’s mad before he responds. He’s leaning back on the couch, arm still outstretched where she was resting on it a moment ago, his eyebrow furrowing. “Maybe?”

She continues to stare at him with wide eyes, feeling more…confused than anything. Chase springs stuff on her sometimes, and she’s always annoyed in the moment, because she doesn’t handle surprises well, but it also helps, because when he says _we should talk_ , she panics until she knows what’s on his mind. Ripping off the Band-Aid isn’t always the worst approach.

“I’m sorry, you just, you…” Gert clears her throat, adjusting her glasses like that was going to affect whether she _heard_ him correctly. God, sometimes she wondered how she functioned at all. “Can you repeat that? And like, elaborate, maybe?”

Chase smirks, and it’s _very annoying_ , because he seems really calm and assured and she feels like someone shouldn’t be either of those things when they’re surprise-proposing to someone. Not that he even is necessarily proposing? Maybe he’s just throwing it out there to see how she responds. Normal people talk about marriage before actually committing to it, right?

Because they’re so normal.

“Um…” Chase tilts his head. “It’s just something I’ve been…you know, thinking about? Lately?” She’s not sure why he keeps phrasing everything like a question. “And I think we should…talk about it.”

Gert frowns. She doesn’t really mean to, because most people would be ecstatic at hearing that the person they love wants to marry them. But Gert doesn’t react like most people, to anything, and Chase never gets scared away by it, because nothing he does in relation to her makes any sense.

“Or…we don’t have to,” Chase says cautiously, still trying to read the expression on her face. “It can wait.”

She’s taking a long time to respond, and she thinks about the beginning, when both of them took silence and just ran straight into a ditch with it, pretending they didn’t care because nothing that happened between them meant anything. Everything was just a fluke, a one-time thing, until it became a two- or three- or fifteen-time thing.

It’s not like that anymore. They’ve been together too long, been through too much, in this life and another. They can wait for each other without worrying that the next word will be a rejection.

Well, in Gert’s case, without worrying _too_ much. She’ll never feel one hundred percent secure in anything, and maybe that’s okay, because she never takes it for granted, either.

“You want to get married?” she says finally. “Like…married, married?”

“Is there more than one kind of married?” he asks, and he’s looking at her like he’s not actually sure of the answer. She shrugs. “Okay, well, um…yes. Married. Legally. Is that too…I don’t know, patriarchal for you?”

Gert thinks about it for a second. It’s funny. When they were younger, she was convinced that Chase would marry some model and live a perfectly boring, affluent life in a big-ass suburban house. Just like the rest of his dipshit lacrosse buddies.

She was never going to be happy with a life like that. She was going to travel and hook up with some hot guy with an accent and say things like “oh, I’m married to my work at the nonprofit.”

But somehow, their lives met in the middle. He didn’t want that life. He wanted her, and her anxiety, and her dinosaur, all of it.

“No?” Now she’s the one making every word sound like a question. “I mean, I’m not opposed to marriage. My parents had a pretty good one, if we’re excluding all the, you know, Pride stuff. Very equal.” She holds up her hands, touching her fingertips together as if Chase can’t understand the concept of equality all on his own. “Does marriage freak you out? I mean, with…”

Chase swallows. “It used to. I was terrified of turning out just like him. But I’m not him. Took me a while to figure that out, but I believe it now.”

She isn’t sure any two people can be more different than Chase is from his father. He’s the kindest, most open-hearted person Gert has ever met. Abuse is a cycle, hard to break, but it’s not impossible. Chase proves that every day. “I know that too, just so you know.” She cups his cheek, making sure he’s looking at her. “That’s not…why it scares me.”

He nods. “Then why does it scare you?”

“Because…everything scares me,” she admits, dropping her hand to his knee and squeezing it. “That’s a really big decision and…I don’t know, I mean, I _just_ graduated college. And right now, I’m…I’m kinda cycling through divorce statistics in my head so I’m sorry.”

Chase smiles, the soft one that’s meant to put her at ease. “It’s okay. I get it. I just…” He trails off, looking away like he’s trying to decide whether he should say what he’s thinking, and she understands why as soon as he does. “Most people are afraid to make a commitment because they’re worried their feelings will change. B-But I already know that mine…don’t. So. It doesn’t scare me.”

She meets his eyes, and it’s pretty intense. Gert knows a lot of people say that they’ll stay together forever. They say it, but they can’t see the future.

But Chase did. He saw his future. It’s a heavy burden – he’s still trying to make sense of it, five years later – but there’s one thing it made him very, very sure of, and that’s her.

Gert leans back again, tucking her head into his shoulder and relaxing as his fingers twist in her hair. “Where would we live?” she asks, lifting her voice to try and lighten the mood. “The hostel?”

Chase laughs. “I mean, we did fix it up pretty good.”

They’re back there, temporarily, while Gert looks for a job. It’s home, after all, and will always feel that way to some degree. Even when they stopped running, they stayed. No one was ready to forgive their parents and move back into their comfortable lives like nothing had ever happened. Their families – what was left of them, anyway – accepted it eventually, figuring it was better to know where they were and be able to visit than to chase them away again.

“Wherever you want. We could get our own apartment. Build a house together.” Gert snorts, and Chase grins. “Or I could build the house. By myself.”

“That sounds more accurate.”

“I don’t care, you know.” Chase looks down at her, she can see it out of the corner of her eye. “I’ll follow you to Timbuktu if you want. You’re the only family I care about.”

Even after all this time, Gert still melts when he gets romantic like this. She shifts, pressing her lips to his before curling up closer to him. “Timbuktu, huh? What language do they speak there?”

“No idea. I’ll Google it.” She laughs again, she doesn’t know how Chase always does this to her. Stacey told her that looks can fade – although, because Chase is a jerk, he’ll probably be gorgeous forever – but someone who makes her laugh could make her laugh for the rest of their lives.

And as soon as she thinks it, she knows she wants _the rest of their lives_.

He’s not pressing, because she changed the subject and he’s trying to roll with that. So she has to shift it back. “Okay. Why not?”

“We’re going to Timbuktu?” he says in that goofy voice that she loves.

“No. The other thing.” Gert feels him tense up behind her and she can practically hear him wracking his brain to make sure there’s no “other thing” she could be referring to.

“You…” He moves a little to the side so he can look at her head-on. “You want to…”

Chase can never seem to finish his sentences.

“Yeah. I want to. I mean…with everything we’ve been through, this isn’t even in like the top ten scariest things we’ve ever done, is it?”

And his face just _lights up_ , she adores how openly happy he can be, and god, they’re so different. It’s crazy that this even works, but it does, and also she’s psychically connected to a Deinonychus, so really, she’s not sure why she classifies anything as _crazy_ anymore.

“Are you sure?” he says, grinning crookedly at her. He already knows what she’s going to say, but he just has to check, he always has to check.

“Hell yeah. But I’m coming with you to get a ring. Nothing from a war zone.” Her stupid grin matches his, and it doesn’t take long at all before Chase is pulling her into his lap to kiss her.

She didn’t see her future, doesn't know what will happen. She does know that she almost didn't have a future at all.

Thanks to him, she does. And she can’t really think of any way she'd rather spend it.


End file.
